Julius Amedume’s award winning Rattlesnakes

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I heard today Julius a friend from University who I always knew was super talented and would make waves in the near future. Won 2 awards for his new film Rattlesnakes.

  • The ScreenNation Independent Sprit Film Production Award at the 14th Screen Nation Film and Television Awards in London.
  • Winner of the 2019 Pan African Film Audience Award.

RATTLESNAKES by Julius Amedume from Julius Amedume on Vimeo.

There’s a showing and Q&A with Julius (work permitting) at the BFI Southbank, London in August. Really hoping to be there…

Youtube isn’t the place it use to be?

Will smith is a youtuber now

I had the absolute joy of attending the 12th Thinking Digital Conference. One of the speakers Chris Stokel-Walker so called YouTube Investigator, raised a number of interesting points about the evolution of youtube from its history as place for cat vdeos, pirate videos and silly antics; to a place with 1.9 billion monthly views, algorithmic bias and massive hollywood stars (Will Smith is on Youtube, bloody heck?!)

Chris made the point “youtube grew up faster than hollywood” alongside the fact its one of the most desirable career paths for young people currently and the vast amount of video being uploaded is unthinkable now. 4 months of youtube uploads will have you watching till the year 8096!

Youtube litteracy

He’s right, our media literacy around this all is seriously lacking, and its very clear while reading theverge piece I recently read.

Updated Sunday 19th May…

Weirdly enough I was reading a piece titled The Instagram Aesthetic Is Over, which I felt was very fitting. As it almost felt like while Youtube was becoming less authetic, Instagram with its super glossy unnatrual filter was shaking that off. They seem to be going in opposite directions?

“Everyone is trying to be more authentic,” says Lexie Carbone, a content marketer at Later, a social-media marketing firm. “People are writing longer captions. They are sharing how much money they make … I think it all goes back to, you don’t want to see a girl standing in front of a wall that you’ve seen thousands of times. We need something new.”

James Nord, the CEO of Fohr, an influencer-management platform, says he sees this shift play out in his clients’ numbers every day. “What worked for people before doesn’t work anymore,” he says. “For the first time, influencers are coming up against this problem of, How do I continue to grow as tastes change?” A year ago, an influencer could post a shot with manicured hands on a coffee cup and rake in the likes—but now, people will unfollow. According to Fohr, 60 percent of influencers in his network with more than 100,000 followers are actually losing followers month over month. “It’s pretty staggering,” he says. “If you’re an influencer [in 2019] who is still standing in front of Instagram walls, it’s hard.”

Hollywood whitewashing, how is this still a thing?

Blackstorem trooper

Came home from our first emerging tech and future narratives event, a partnership with VR Manchester. Saw there was a new last week tonight with John Oliver, watched it and half way had to replay the segment,

How is this still a thing?

Sometimes you sit in front of your TV and realize you’re watching something important. It happens quite often on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Sunday’s episode was no exception. In addition to an incendiary piece about abortion laws, Oliver attacked Hollywood whitewashing.

It is 4 half minutes of pure joy, and ever so sadness all wrapped up in  a excellent package; delivered with such skillful mastery.  Even the Dailyshow with Jon Stewart would have been proud.

I have nothing to really say about the whitewashing of Hollywood which hasn’t been said by many others before, except… how is this still a thing in 2016!

Feminism slowly breaking through?

Its great to see more positive female role models in the media, but I wonder if they go far enough?

Supergirl

Supergirl

You must have heard the pilot episode of Supergirl was leaked (I think put online, I mean the Gotham and Flash pilots and others were also leaked)

The first episode of CBS’s forthcoming Supergirl series has leaked online a full six months before it was scheduled to air. Two versions of the 46-minute episode (one in full HD and another in lower resolution) made their way onto torrenting sites late last week, with BitTorrent news site TorrentFreak describing the leak as a “complete surprise” to the pirating community.

I watched the pilot episode and it struck me as fun and very like the Flash (not really a surprise as its the same kind of team). I’m not the only one who says so either in this spoiler free view.

Agent Carter

Agent Carter

After Agents of SHEILDs got very samey, I pretty much ignored Agent Carter till I saw people talking about it.

To be fair I checked out a couple of episodes but it hasn’t grabbed me, so its just sitting there waiting for me to watch the rest sometime. However, I have to admit its got a good feeling throughout.

Agent Carter, is a sly analogy for the state of women today, especially women in geek culture. The show reflects pop media buzz topics, like Gamergate, Fake Geek Girl memes, and the sexual harassment of creators, through the lens of a time that seems archaic. However, the topics, the misogyny and inequality that Peggy deals with, is anything but archaic. These are things that modern women deal with on a daily basis: the street harassment, the catcalling, the sexualization, the dehumanizing, the diminishing, and the belittling.

Peggy Carter is the modern woman, capable and strong, but forced into a world that will not accept her for who she is and will not listen to her speaking out against the men who put her down

Some reviews are less sure about the feminist angle.

Mad max fury road

Mad max: Fury Road

When I first saw posters for the Madmax reboot, I pretty much dismissed it but then I started hearing how interesting it actually is and how it passed the Bechdel test

The Bechdel Test is a film litmus test. To pass, a movie must have two female characters, with names, who talk to each other, about something other than a man. It’s not perfect but it helps illustrate how utterly underrepresented women’s voices are in film. “Mad Max: Fury Road” passes on a level heretofore unheard of outside “chick flicks.” There is a moment late in the film when no less than twelve women — seven of them named — are talking together. On the one hand I am mortified this is cause for celebration. On the other hand, it’s a decisive victory worthy of a fist pump.

I’m not saying this is all something new, just interesting to see a few come out about the same kind of time. It would be nice if Hollywood would take more risks with the under represented.

Sure its a glitch in the matrix and we’ll be back to the 50 shades of greys again soon enough…

Although I’m going to say, it would be amazing to turn some parts of Girl with a one track mind into a film?

Its certainly could/would work better than as a TV series which diary of the call girl got turned into. Its worth reading both blogs as they so very different in many accounts! The feminist message of empowerment could really work well, wonder if Zoe ever considered it as a film, especially as she use to be in the film business herself…

Inception the most pirated movie on Bittorrent for the last month

Inception cover

Inception has been the most pirated movie on Bittorrent for the last month now. 4, 3, 2, 1 week(s) ago. And its had some very strong challengers from Scott Pilgrim, The social network and Wall street: Money never sleeps.

I did notice that when the HD version of Inception did hit the scene, the pirate bay was overloaded for a good few hours.

I’m sure the chief’s hollywood are cursing the scene for being so well organized and getting a hd rip out before they could get the retail DVD out. I’ve personally had my Inception Blu-ray/DVD/itunes (Triple Play) on pre-order for about 2 months now. I’m sure when Amazon do send it out, it will sit on my DVD rack with great prominence (my first blu-ray). Now I need to get myself a inception movie poster because they are great.

Also great to see Inception is still in position 4 of IMDB’s top 250 of all time right behind Godfather part 2.